Always A Commander Never A Captain

I've been reading speculation that he's made the leap. What he changed in the off-season has likely made him an Ace. Absolutely crucial for our rebuild. Especially with Corbin (and now Strasburg?) contracts off the books. We can go hard on what our farm lacks, pitching in FA.

I'm curious how many negative boxes Caleb Williams checks. I'd say he checks all the ones for Maye except for "Not enough starts". One box that might be more unchecked for Daniels and Maye vs checked for Williams is severity of sacks. They all get sacked loads, but when Williams does it's brutal, whereas Daniels and Maye often have less yardage lost and less fumbles. I do find it interesting that analysts will cite positives for Caleb, but then use that same thing as a negative for other QB's. I swear, if Chicago wasn't so obviously hell bent on picking him at #1, the discourse around Caleb would be less "this is a perfect prospect that we should put on a pedestal and never question" and more "this is a fun draft that has lots of flawed but pretty talented prospects.

Kittle is interesting, his usage is causing him to age a bit like a RB. His dominant athleticism has waned taking a beating like he does. He's also not a plus sized monster like Gronk. Kittle is slightly bigger than Brock Bowers, which also goes to show how Bowers should be used otherwise his skills could deteriorate faster. We know nothing of Bowers testing other than he looks fluid on tape. He declined to be tested at the Combine, Georgia Pro Day, and then the special Pro Day he did with Mims. Bowers is really enticing, but there are a lot of red flags from his smaller size, probably not the crazy Kittle levels of athleticism, and the pounding an in-line TE can take. If he's just a move TE that's basically a Big Nickel that occasionally blocks linebackers, ok, cool. But that's not someone you draft as early as he's hyped.

You can buy it by getting a cheap subscription and then download the Beast (it's a 300 page PDF). I don't know what the deal is currently, but they used to have a 1 month trial for $1.

I think Meneses would have to go down. I'm reading conflicting things on this, but service time manipulation dates are really soon? If Wood is called up after that date, and balls out, do we still get a draft pick but he loses a year of service time? Some people are saying that's the case, others are saying service time stays the same and we don't get the pick?

It has in the past, plenty of times. They've only invited 13 this year, but they invited 17 in 2023 and 21 in 2022. In 2019 22 prospects attended. In 2023, the following guys who went to the combine were picked in the 2nd round: Joey Porter Jr Will Levis Brian Branch Keion White In 2022, these guys went to the combine and were picked in the 2nd round: Kyler Gordon Same draft (2022), these guys went to the combine and were picked in the 3rd round: Nakobe Dean (picked #83) Malik Willis (picked #86) Matt Corral (picked #94) In 2019, these guys went to the combine and were picked in the 2nd round: Jawaan Taylor Cody Ford Drew Lock Greedy Williams DK Metcalf (#64, last pick in 2nd round)

Anyone have thoughts on Brandon Coleman out of TCU? Dane Brugler has him surprisingly highly rated at OT. Thinks he's a 2nd rounder. P.S. I wouldn't say trash at RT, but Warhead is right in that Cosmi should have made the switch to G sooner. His contribution at G far exceeds his contributions at RT. Sometimes just let guys play where they're best.

I don't think it counts as smoke if nothing is coming from the team. It's all referenced to guys on other teams. Keim and others are being transparent about the lack of access they have right now.

Anyone know what's up with Travis Sykora, the guy we paid way overslot for in the 3rd round last season?

Sure you do. A lot of great Guard's (and Center's) are really athletic. Evan Mathis, David DeCastro, Joel Bitonio, Brandon Scherff, and Ali Marpet fit that. Currently the Chiefs have a pair of extremely athletic Guards in Trey Smith and Joe Thuney. Why wouldn't athleticism help inside?

Mahomes is the best QB in the NFL, so QB's always get compared to him. Zach Wilson was supposed to be very Mahomes-esque. Advanced stats say Caleb Williams playstyle and the effectiveness of it is more akin to Russell Wilson than Mahomes. Chicago would still be pretty happy if Caleb winds up like a mid-2010's Wilson.

That really puts things in context. What a crazy team. That pick was Goff. The prior year was Gurley (retired), the year prior was Donald (retired). It was so long ago it was almost the full Hall of Fame career of possibly their best player ever.

Do we all believe that? What if we believe Rivera & Co screwed the pooch on that pick, and our WR group is McLaurin and then JAG's? It's been 2 years and he can't separate against NFL coverage. I mean, check out his spider chart, does this look like someone who can suddenly figure things out in Year 3? Check out that 3 Cone percentage...for someone who needs to be quick that's awful. I kind of agree. I think he'll have more panicky moments in the Pros. But I do like him at Guard, and I want to have him sit and develop there. It's in my mind that he'll have less panicky moments, and his athleticism will show up better there.

Now tied for 1st in baseball, along with the Reds. With the rule changes, I do feel like aggressive base running is the new Moneyball.

What do you mean by starting-caliber OT? Because odds of an OT drafted in the 2nd/3rd round that win a starting job out of training camp are extremely small.

Why are we switching the stance of Crews? I didn't realize he needed it, he was stellar in college.

I'm ready for Day 2 of the draft to break in a really weird way for us. Like BPA, BPA, oh crap we need an OT still, trade up from our early 3rd for one. It's entirely possible the top of the 2nd round has guys that are too good to not take, and could quickly get playing time.

I'm looking at CB's, and I don't have anyone whose as good as my Top 2 from last year (Witherspoon and Porter). I've got a few more to watch, but in general I'm glad I'm not going into the 1st round wanting to spend a top pick on a CB. Kool-Aid is thought of as a faller who could be at 36, and he's one of my top guys. He's one of my few BPA's at 36. Otherwise it's a trade down and grab prospects at more reasonable values. Guys mocked ahead of Kool-Aid that I'm lower on: Nate Wiggins, Terrion Arnold, Cooper DeJean. I think Arnold and DeJean could get better, but I'm fairly low on Wiggins.

Something to look at as the season progresses. We have the 2nd most stolen bases in MLB and we're tied for 3rd fewest GIDP (grounding into a double play) in MLB. There has to be a correlation between this. It makes sense at least, fewer forced outs as more stolen bases means a runner on 2nd can choose not to run, or turning the double play from 3rd to 1st is that much harder than 2nd to 1st.

That's only 4 spots later. I'd rather trade back and then grab them. I do like them, but I don't think either are borderline 1st's. It's not a weak CB draft, so I'm not too worried about a major CB run grabbing the only good ones.

I'm with this. There are some scenarios where we have an embarrassment of riches in the 2nd round and we should pick someone special that fell. But the more common scenarios have those special talents going ahead of us. Trading back for more shots at the above average talents can juice up the roster top to bottom faster.

I think everyone has encapsulated the Diggs trade here already. One more thing, it was about as sell high as the Bills could have done. He'll be 31, and his production might be falling off. Could have been other factors, such as played banged up, but as he gets older that'll only happen more frequently. As the season progressed, here are his stats: Clear Yards Per Game, Catch %, and TD drop decline. The playoffs continued that decline. He always had 50-70 more targets in Buffalo than the #2 option, but was angry with his lack of targets. Now he's going to Houston that already featured 2 legit options. There's a chance this could be backfire for Houston. If he does revert to his prior self for a season, then Houston gets a steal. CJ Stroud gives them 4 years of contention without the major QB price tag, but a lot of that teams best assets recently are in their 30's. Both of their starting Edge's they're paying a combined $34 million to are 31 and 35 years old. Joe Mixon is getting $9 million, but for a RB that's had 1854 NFL touches in his career that's kind of getting up there. For reference, Zeke lost 1 step around 1400 touches, and then another step around 1900 touches. Alvin Kamara is still good, but he's not the dynamic threat he was, and that drop off happened after 1000 touches. Melvin Gordon's drop off happened around 1750 touches. Point is, Texans might have just a 1 year immediate contention window with their aging roster despite CJ Stroud being on a rookie deal. It makes sense for them to double down, but there's a lot that could go wrong.

Oh right, I forgot about that Top 100 stuff. I apologize for besmirching you Rizzo. If he is legit MLB starter quality (like Lane Thomas), then how or why did everyone write off Lipscomb's Spring Training as showing nothing different from his 2023 minor league season?

Is Trey Lipscomb still eligible to get us draft picks if he balls out, or did Rizzo screw it up?

It's good to suck at just the right time. Instead of say having a top pick in 2022 and needing a QB